332 Prof. J. Reinhardt on the Fin-Whale 



from the figure representing this bone (fig. 4) seen from 

 the concave upper surface, one-eighteenth of the natural size. 

 Unfortunately the stylo-hyals, which sometimes seem to afford 

 valuable specific characters, are wanting. 



The results to which we are led by examining the skull, the 

 atlas, and the hyoid are moreover corroborated by the informa- 

 tion received from Capt. Bottemann about the number of the 

 ribs and of the vertebrae ; for this gentleman, who last summer 

 (1867) was occupied at the fishing-establishment at Seidisfjord, 

 on the east coast of Iceland, counted sixty-four vertebrae 

 in the skeleton of a full-grown ^^ SteypireySr." He found, 

 further, fifteen pairs of ribs in a foetus about 18 feet long, 

 which he had an opportunity of examining more minutely on 

 the 2nd of September, and of which he has been kind enough 

 to send a sketch, accompanied with numerous measurements. 

 Accordingly, though important diagnostic parts of the skeleton 

 (viz. the lower jaw, the first rib, and the sternum) have not 

 been examined, yet it may be considered certain that the 

 " Steypirey^r " belongs to that section of fin- whales for which 

 the Balcenoptera antiquorum may be taken as the type, or, in 

 other words, to the genus Phy solus ^ Gray, 1864 (not 1866). 



But it is equally certain that it is a species not less distinct 

 from the typical one as to its osteology, and especially as to its 

 skull, than we know it to be as to its external characters. 

 When we compare one or another of the better figures of the 

 skull of the type with that of the " Steypirey^r" (fig. 2), 

 it will immediately be seen that the principal difference is 

 that the beak (or, in other words, that part of the face which 

 is situated before the orbital or zygomatic processes of the 

 maxillaries) is much broader and much more obtuse in front 

 in the " Steypirey^r " than in Balcenoptera antiquorum^ and 

 that the outer borders of this part of the skull run almost 

 parallel in their posterior half, and only begin to curve to- 

 wards each other beyond this point. But this, on the other 

 hand, is a diagnostic character of the skull of Balcenoptera 

 Sihhaldn. 



An additional resemblance to the latter species is further 

 presented in the orbital processes of the frontals, whose breadth 

 at their base is considerably greater than their length in the 

 transverse direction of the skull. A pervading resemblance 

 to this species in almost all the proportions of the skull 

 will easily be proved by the table below, giving the measure- 

 ments of the skull of the " SteypireySr " taken exactly as 

 Mr. W. H. Flower measured the skull of Balcenoptera Sih- 

 haldii formerly belonging to Lidth de Jeude; in which, 

 further, the corresponding measurements of that skull are 



